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| Fond du Lac Follies: Our Oscar Myer Weiner Dog |
| NFIC Columnists and Team - Jim Northrup: Fond Du Lac Follies | |||||
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By Jim Northrup
The students and some faculty members were a good audience when I read
and recited poetry. They asked many astute questions at the end of my
presentation. I asked the students if they could name any Anishinaabe
authors. It was quiet for a while until one student began naming ten of
them. I led the applause for her.
****
Our dog, Oscar Myer Weiner Dog, was born in April and came to live with us in June. He is a healthy active dog who brings smiles to the faces that live here and on the human faces that visit. He eats good, puppy food only. As a result he is growing but this is an unusual dog, he doesn’t grow up, he grows longer. I think he is tall as he is going to be but I don’t know how long he will grow. I have never had a dog that grows horizontally and not vertically. Oscar understands the Ojibwe words ambe omaa, agwajiing, nibaan, gego, bizaan and we are working on bekaa Oscar Myer, Mayer, Meyer (spelling varies) Weiner Dog goes through the same routine every time he comes in the house. It is the same
whether
he has been outside ten minutes or two hours. He runs around in circles
rapidly, making squealing noises as if he is happy to be inside. He
jumps up into the easy chair then jumps down, along the way he picks up
one of his chew toys and continues running around. His feet noises
sounds like a big German Shepherd. The routine ends when he jumps up on
an easy chair to sleep.
****
The newspapers and televison news tells me about three people dying in a sweat lodge in Sedona, Arizona. A culture vulture held his sweat in a plastic tarp covered structure. I offer my condolences to the families of the three victims.
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I have watched some television sports lately. One thing I have noticed is how many baseball and football players and coaches spit on the ground. Ish. When I was growing up TB hit the Indian community hard. If you went to just about any house you could find someone in bed suffering from the disease, Or maybe they were away at a TB San, sometimes for years of bed rest, or medicines. My dad, Bope, lost half a lung to the disease at the San called Nopeming near Duluth, My sister Judy and I went to the one at Walker, Minnesota called Agwajiing. I was probably about four years old, young enough to be sleeping in a big crib. As I recall my therapy consisted of playing in a sandbox outside in the sun. One of the harshest rules in the San was no spitting, another was to cover coughs and sneezes. Some sixty years later I still follow those rules. So, what message are these professional athletes giving us? It is okay to spit on the ground, nookomisinaan, if you are on TV? One would think they would be more careful in these days of flu, swine flu and other airborne diseases. I wouldn’t want to be the guy who has to clean the bullpen or sidelines after these guys have been spitting for a couple of hours. Ish. Mii iw Mii sa iw.
****
The views expressed in this column belong to the writer alone. They are not meant to represent this newspaper, this Rez or spitters anywhere. Comments and bingo packs can be sent to FdL Follies, PO Box 16, Sawyer, MN 55780-0016 email : This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it web page : www.nativewiki.org/jim_northrup
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Fond du Lac Follies motored to LCO Tribal College in Hayward, Wisconsin. I had been invited there because the Indian Literature class was using my first book, Walking The Rez Road, in their studies. What an honor I thought, someone cared enough about my writing to actually study how I use words to tell my stories.
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